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| A gaudy peacock butterfly soaking up food and sunshine |
I have felt all a bit pampered over the past week .
Three days of dressing up clean and tidy. Three days of city travel, good food and socialising.
Three days of West End Shows, family catch ups,and urban sightseeing
It has been fun.
Now I am back in my slightly ripped Walking Dead T shirt
The feet are grubby in my crocs
And the faint smell of chicken poo is coming from my knees after a few minutes kneeling over " Nettle"( the new chick who Sorrel adopted)
Funny how quickly normality returns
Anyway
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| The tortoiseshell and peacocks in the front garden |
Over the past few years the buddleia bushes that I planted in the back garden have been quiet and lonely but this year's warmth and sunshine has resurrected the populations of the cabbage white, red admiral and peacock species around the field and garden.
Every time I see them, beavering away around the Bosom's' cabbages, I am transported to those long hot summers of my childhood ( we all have this memory do we not?) where butterflies filled the air above your parents' herbaceous borders and squadrons of wasps drowned themselves in your tall glasses of orange squash which were left unattended in the sun
I have delighted in their return.
it's always good to be back home. i am scared to death of butterflies. they attack me outside and have since i was a child. i hate the damn things!
ReplyDeleteI feel that same way about daddy long legs
DeleteI appear to have a tortoiseshell butterfly on the ceiling of my landing. I'm trying to get it down which is proving to be near impossible due to my short size.
ReplyDeleteLeave it there.... They are pretty little things
DeleteI don't think I've ever seen a butterfly that beautiful and bright. Glad you're back to smelling of chicken poo.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Back to normality....I even had a tint scotch egg for lunch
Delete( a pressie from my sister)
Love to travel, but home is always the best place on earth to be.
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth x
DeleteHave you the monoply on butterflies? I have seen so few here, other than Small Whites and the odd Brimstone.
ReplyDeleteGood to be home isn't it?
Perhaps Jaz would like to move to Australia. We are well on our way to eliminating ours.
ReplyDeleteWe have here too... It's just this year they seem to have returned andrew
DeleteFrightened of daddy long legs? How wimpy is that and you a big ol bloke! :-)
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand , I have strangled a rat with my hands
Delete( there's a blog story about it somewhere)
Flutterbys have such an ethereal quality...love them.
ReplyDeleteJane x
What a gorgeous butterfly! We are having a terrible butterfly here. I have not seen a single Monarch, for the first time ever. A very bad sign.
ReplyDeleteWhy is that nat?
DeleteIs there a reason
Last year our wet summer was the cause
I am always glad to be back home, even after a good vacation. There's just something comforting about it.
ReplyDeleteKeith,...ain't that the truth
DeleteI've never seen such a lovely butterfly. Like Knatolee, no monarchs to be seen. Not good.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm....seems like we haven't seen as many this year but with all the rain we've had it's no wonder. Butterflies need sunshine!
ReplyDeleteI do think we wear rose tinted specs about those endless fine days of our childhood John. But as for butterflies - there are certainly many more here too this year.
ReplyDeleteAh yes - childhood summers. As I recall the East Yorkshire air was so filled with butterflies you could hardly see the sky and the North Sea was as warm as the Bay of Bengal and Old Ma Fairlow down at the canal gave out free lemonade and chocolate biscuits and the United Nations had decreed that there would be no more wars and Hull City won the FA Cup... Ah yes, I remember it well.
ReplyDeleteOh YP
DeleteSMACKED BOTTOMS ALL ROUND
We have gorgeous yellow and blue-black swallowtails that thrive on our re-seeded parsley. I could do without the cabbage moths on my broccoli every spring, but yes, they do evoke warm, cricket-shrill* afternoons of my childhood.
ReplyDelete(*The insects, not shouting men running around with bats and shinguards.)
I've seen butterflies here, too. Lots of tiger swallowtails and some monarchs--not as many of the latter as last year. I've not seen a luna moth yet this year, i find their pale green lumnescence striking.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actias_luna
We've had a lot more butterflies this year too. Very few ladybirds, however and I've seen fewer clouds of midges (or midgets, as we say in Norfolk), I'm sure, so I don't know how the birds have fared.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing butterflies but...if they're 'beavering away' round your cabbages it's because they're laying eggs on them and the caterpillars will eat those brassicas full of holes as soon as you turn your back! You can net them but you need small holes they can't crawl through and no part touching or they can still lay eggs on them. Builder's debris netting is a good economical solution - especially if you can smile sweetly at the builders and get it for free...
ReplyDeleteInitially I was annoyed but it is such a rarity to see the butterflies return..I kind of accept it now
DeleteYou don't do your chores in a Yorkshire Pudding t-shirt?
ReplyDeleteI aim to buy one jan....
DeleteAnd like YP
THERE WILL BE A PITHY QUIP on the back of ut
You have all the butterflies and we have all the bloomin moths. I have never seen as many as I have this year. I wish they would go away!
ReplyDeleteLoads of butterflies in my garden & I'm loving it.
ReplyDeleteI did have to smile while out dog walking when I heard a high pitched screech & saw a child lob his ice cream away. "Sound of the summer" I said to his giggling mum ... "wasp on ice cream"
We giggled & I said he'd scared my dog. The boy was grinning with blue lips ( who knew they did blue ice cream now )
Blue ice cream.... Bloody hell
DeleteSign of the times
Ahhhh - the sweet smell of home.
ReplyDeleteThe peacocks are gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteSuddenly I feel so much better. Someone else has been chased and attacked by butterflys (Jaz@octoberfarm)....
ReplyDeleteGlad you had a good time, John. Goes quick though doesn't it. Back to the weeds and the mundane here too.
ReplyDeleteJohn
ReplyDeleteIf it is not to late for you Allotment Open can you email me your address ?
I have a packet of cards to send. Sorry I'm so late the new meds made me really sick for the first 4 weeks.
angryparsnip@gmail.com
cheers, parsnip
I'd rather the butterflies than the wasps!
ReplyDeleteLovely blooms, John.
It is great to go away and have new experiences and see old friends, but there is no place like home, there is no place like home.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on the summer bit.
ReplyDeleteHowever, enter the likes of Albert. Cats are terrible that way. Anything that moves will attract their attention. With dire results.
U
I'm just about coping with all the bloody billions of butterflies that have descended on the many buddleias and the lavender this year, I used to just see them as multi coloured moths, which I was terrified of but now I do almost quite like them.
ReplyDeleteExcept the little gits that laid all the eggs on my cabbages and made them fit for only chicken food that is.
I am still phobic about Daddy Long Legs though, I mean it's not normal to have legs that long and trail them behind you when you fly into people is it :-(